"I just can't go, Gordon."
Before Marriott could reply there was a sense of interruption; he heard doors softly open and close, the muffled and proper step of a maid, the well-known sounds that told him that somewhere in the house a bell had rung. In another moment he heard voices in the hall; a laugh of familiarity, more steps,--and then Eades and Modderwell and Mrs. Ward entered the room. Elizabeth cast at Marriott a quick glance of disappointment and displeasure; his heart leaped, he wondered if it were because of Eades's coming. Then he decided, against his will, that it was because of Modderwell. A constraint came over him, he suddenly felt it impossible that he should speak, he withdrew wholly within himself, and sat with an air of detachment.
The clergyman, stooping an instant to chafe his palms before the fire, had taken a chair close to Elizabeth, and he now began making remarks about nothing, his clean, ruddy face smiling constantly, showing his perfect teeth, his eyes roving over Elizabeth's figure.
"Well! Well! Well!" he cried. "What grave questions have you two been deciding this time?"
Elizabeth glanced at Marriott, whose face was drawn, then at Eades, who sat there in the full propriety of his evening clothes, then at her mother, seated in what was considered the correct attitude for a lady on whom her rector had called.
"I think it's good we came, eh, Eades?" the clergyman went on, without waiting for an answer. "It is not good for you to be too serious, Miss Elizabeth,--my pastoral calls are meant as much as anything to take people out of themselves." He laughed again in his abundant self-satisfaction and reclined comfortably in his chair. And he rolled his head in his clerical collar, with a smile to show Elizabeth how he regarded duties that in all propriety must not be considered too seriously or too sincerely. But Elizabeth did not smile. She met his eyes calmly.
"Dear me," he said, mocking her gravity. "It must have been serious."
"It was," said Elizabeth soberly. "It was--the murder!"
"The murder! Shocking!" said Modderwell. "I've read something about it. The newspapers say the identification of Koerner by that poor old woman was complete and positive; they say the shock was such that she fainted, and that he stood there all the time and sneered. I hope, Eades, you will see that the wretch gets his deserts promptly, and send him to the gallows, where he belongs!"
"Marriott here doesn't join you in that wish, I know," said Eades.